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You wouldn’t be blamed if early on in Edward Berger’s BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER you found yourself feeling lost. This is not to say the film which stars Colin Farrell as a deep pocketed sweaty gambler is confusing. In fact one would say quite the opposite due to much of its straightforwardness, but the film and its filmmakers have found themselves being dealt an easy hand and instead makes things more frustratingly challenging for themselves. In the world of card gambling you can play your hand or find yourself playing your opponents’ mysterious cards, either way your options are limited. BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER is an easy sell on paper, Colin Farrell escapes to the fantasy feeling card dealing world of Macau to avoid his past, all the while battling a never ending addiction to nearly every vice imaginable. Something expressed early on when Farrell as Lord Doyle wakes up beaten and battered for the umpteenth time while still looking for the next game instead of getting his shit together. A film that could be a chaotic, down on his luck joy ride becomes a mix mash of films that never feel connected due to some over directing and inability to focus on the correct tension it is trying to display. Instead BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER isn’t a losing hand but rather bizarrely playing against your own cards when the winning hand was right in front of you.

Macau promises its visitors everything while delivering nothing. Rebuilt many decades ago as modern gambling economy Macau has the makings of all the fantasy that an everyday Vegas traveler has come to know. And yet many White foreigners or “Gweilo” come to explore its richness of foreign traditions while ignoring the respect placed upon it. For Lord Doyle (Farrell) Macau is a sanctuary. It is also a place of lies or more so bluffs. Here Doyle can masquerade around as a Lord where people are willing to believe so in order to obtain his wealth and possible good fortune. Farrell is tailor made for Doyle. Stumbling around trying to maintain his swagger decked out in a posh velvet red suit that screams “I had money,” with an emphasis on past tense. Doyle living in the largest suit (full outdoor pool and patio included) in hotel casino guarded by a crystalized Eifel tower. Everything about the Macau gambling world is a copy of a copy, this is not to disrespect the region but rather bring notice to its ability to build its success on allowing others to believe things are real and financial success is just around the corner. James Friend’s cinematography enforces this idea shooting nearly every frame drenched in neon lights while also highlighting the interior decorating that could only combat something you’d unfortunately find in a Trump Towers.

But even with all its glamour Doyle has little time to immerse himself in the riches. Every win at the table is spent at another loss at another baccarat table. A game created to be simple enough to have one believe in a win but easy enough to lose everything in a quick hand. Doyle at the end of his longest and most deadly losing streak finds himself with a few days to cover his extraneous hotel bill as well as avoid as pesky mysterious figure from a possible past life in the form of an investigator named Blithe (Tilda Swinton donning a wig that feels left over from any of her other peculiar roles). But much like the superstitious and ghost story beliefs of baccarat, Doyle is assisted by a striking casino employee Dao Ming (Fala Chen). Ming glides into a baccarat game Doyle is playing against one of the lands wealthiest inhabitants (Deanie Ip) to not just offer some credit but possible hope to winning and removing himself from this world to a better place.

BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER may have all the right pieces but it is Edward Berger’s over directing that causing this tale of addiction and lost souls to feel aimless. It is also a film of many forms. Taking big swings and moving away from conventional structure is never something to disregard and while Berger may have felt that in his filmmaking style, SMALL PLAYER is anything but this. Instead the film feels part dark comedy, part Hemingway tale, other parts Oscar bait love story and above all else (unfortunately) Netflix styled pill that is easy to swallow and even easier to forget.  Doyle encounters many people through both his losses and eventual withdrawal (both of drink and the game) but it never feels like anyone he meets is in the same film. Thus causing Farrell’s performance to be less of the glue to tie things together and more so Alice stuck in an otherwise dull Wonderland. Things find themselves at their best whenever Doyle finds himself drawn back to the tables as well as the moments in between where Farrell articulately depicts how the turmoil’s of addiction can see over exaggerated. Not because its comical but because in truth addiction creates a world that can seem fanatical to those unfamiliar. Watching Farrell sweat it out while devouring everything on the room service menu may be a darkly comical and sickening sight but it also manifests one of the only truthful elements of the film as Doyle’s addiction is its own character guiding the unwell being of Doyle.

Unfortunately the rest of SMALL PLAYER ventures into a territory that would be mesmerizing if not so shoehorned and limited. The film and its screenplay from Rowan Joffe (adapted from Lawrence Osborne’s novel of the same name) want to dive deeper into the superstitions that surround both the game of Baccarat as well as the religious and spiritual beliefs of Macau. In doing so it feels less educated to the fact and more so a foreigner in a foreign land adjusting their screenplay to match what feels appealing to them about other’s traditions. It manages to ride these ideas mainly on the backs of Farrell and an underutilized Fala Chen. Instead of feeling the full weight of this connection between two people wondering the same land it feels too distant to ever make a believable connection allowing its cathartic ending to feel shorthanded. It is an ending that you know is going to occur simply because it has always been headed that way that you hope the journey at least has a little more to say. Instead BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER can never escape its own themes of false promises with little returns feeling like a film that just wanted to rummage through the casino just to cash out too early.

C

BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER IS NOW STREAMING ON NETFLIX